This is year's programme is part of a broader university-wide set of events exploring D/Evolving Manchester.‌

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This year’s programme had a slightly different approach. Instead of having three separate strands, all of this year’s events will explore the same topic: Greater Manchester and Northern Identity. This is part of a broader university-wide set of events exploring D/Evolving Manchester.‌ The programme will include our Gothic Manchester Festival, which is returning this year with a theme close to our fast-beating Mancunian hearts: “The Gothic North.”Manchester is a city recognised globally as a centre for business, sport and culture. And while it is, now, easy to be proud of our city, its worldly reputation and our status as Mancunians, Manchester was not always like this. Before 1996, Manchester was not quite so well known internationally.

An IRA bomb hit Manchester twenty years ago, on 15th June 1996, and shook the city and its identity to its very core. The destruction caused by the bomb stimulated rapid regeneration of the city centre, resulting in massive investment and major changes to the layout and fabric of the city centre. The people of Manchester were keen to rebuild their city and show their resilience in the face of destruction.Since then, Manchesterhas grown – in terms of both its culture and its economy, as well as the twointertwined – into the UK’s second metropolitan centre. Manchester has takenits place on a global stage and become a global brand: cool, hip, cutting-edge.

In light of Brexit and the Devolution agenda, we now find ourselves on the verge of Manchester’s next stage of progressive development. As the city at the forefront of the Northern Powerhouse agenda, it is clear Manchester has a lot to offer. But how can our identity as Northern and Mancunian help to protect our region against the anxieties currently engulfing the nation and ensure that Devolution is a success?While our events will act as a celebration of every one of Manchester’s 10 boroughs and the different components of Manchester’s identity – including LGBT culture, sport, music and literature to name a few – they will also pose the question ‘what’s next?’ for our city and its neighbouring regions. We are delighted to present D/Evolving Manchester: Greater Manchester and Northern Identity. We hope you are as excited as we are to get started on celebrating, exploring and quite simply reminding ourselves of the many faces of Manchester that have made us into the city we are today.

First in a series of film events dedicated to one of Manchester's best friends, artist and political activist Paul Robeson, PR IN MANCHESTER put the spotlight on the local legendary fondness for musicals and reveal little known historical connections between Manchester and the American stage. American stage which unlike its Mancunian counterpart took its time to welcome Black actors as Paul Robeson reminds us in HERE I STAND. Back in the days of his role model - Shakespearian actor Ira Aldridge - "it was not possible for a (Black) actor to appear in any role - not even as a buffoon."

PR IN MANCHESTER included the screening of SHOW BOAT, the classic film musical released in the Olympic year of 1936 which addresses "1930s style" racial issues. It tells the story, starting in the 1880s, of the Hawk family, owners of a floating theatre providing entertainment along the Mississippi River. Paul Robeson plays the role of Joe, one of the stevedores employed by the Hawks.

The recent 2014 Devolution Agreement transferred particular powers and responsibilities from national government to the local region of Greater Manchester. The creation of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) aims to facilitate devolution of the region. Ideally, devolution will enable local residents and meet their goals and needs, rather than working to the national agenda. This event explored the appetite for a constitution for the region amongst local agencies, businesses and voluntary agencies.